Wisdom for Meeting the Storm Together:
Holding and Transforming Our Fear with Compassion and Collective Care
With Dharma Teachers: Dr. Marisela Gomez, Kaira Jewel Lingo and Joe Reilly
Assistant Teacher: Judy Yushin Nakatomi
In a time of intensifying uncertainty, grief, and pressure on our communities, it is essential for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to have spaces of refuge, truth-telling, and collective care. This retreat offers a place to pause, breathe, and remember that we are not meant to meet these storms alone.
Together, through mindfulness and embodied practice, we explore how fear lives in our bodies, histories, and communities, and how it can be met without turning away or becoming overwhelmed. We strengthen our capacity to stay present, to draw on ancestral and communal wisdom, and to support one another in meeting this moment with integrity and love. Inner transformation becomes the ground from which collective healing and wise action can emerge.
Mindfulness will be at the heart of all we do. The retreat will include daily dharma teachings, sitting and stationary meditation, mindful walking or movement, mindful eating, singing, dharma writing, and small-group sharing. We will practice for one full day and a half in silence and engage in optional somatic movement and nature practices that invite us into deeper presence with the land. Rooted in compassion and collective care, this retreat supports us in meeting the storm together and remembering our capacity to rest, heal, resist harm, and build Beloved Community.
SCHOLARSHIPS
There are a limited number of partial Garrison Institute Many Voices scholarships available for this retreat. Please do not sign up for the retreat if you have submitted an application. Please wait to hear from us. For questions, please contact us at: scholarships@garrisoninstitute.org. Please visit us here for more information, and to apply.
We also acknowledge with gratitude the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation and its generous donors for supporting this retreat. We encourage those who are able, to donate to their grant program – so that future endeavors may also be supported at thichnhathanhfoundation.org.
TEACHERS
Dr. Marisela Gomez is a mindfulness practitioner in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, public health scholar activist, preventive/alternative medicine physician. Of Afro-Latina ancestry, she lives in Baltimore involved in social justice activism and community building/research and co-facilitates mindfulness gatherings with Baltimore and Beyond Mindfulness Community for BIPOC and Social Activists. She is the author of Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore, and numerous book chapters in popular and scholarly publications. Marisela is co-author of Healing our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation and the upcoming book Love is Liberation: Five Contemplations for Daily Ethical Living. She has blogged at Huff Post and mariselgomez.com on the intersection of wisdom justice and mindfulness.
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice. Her work continues the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, and she draws inspiration from her parents’ lives of service and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King, Jr. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate and social justice with a focus on activists, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth. Based in New York, she offers spiritual mentoring to groups and is author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruptionfrom Parallax Press. She is co-author of co author of Healing our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation. Her teachings and writings can be found at www.kairajewel.com.
Joe Reilly (he, him) is a singer, songwriter, social worker, and ordained Dharma Teacher in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. Joe was raised Catholic and currently studies and practices progressive Catholicism, Native American spirituality, and engaged Buddhism. Joe has been a student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh since 2004 and is often found singing and writing songs on spiritual retreats. He currently lives in Waawiyatanong/Detroit, where he co-leads the Building Beloved Community Sangha. He is of Cherokee, Choctaw, Italian, and Irish descent and identifies as Native American. Joe has released 9 albums of original songs, including 4 children’s albums. Find his music on your favorite streaming platform or on his website: www.joereilly.org.
ASSISTANT TEACHER
Judy Yushin Nakatomi
Mother, writer, life partner, dharma teacher in the Plum Village Tradition of Venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh, end-of-life caregiver and somatic embodiment practitioner. Judy serves as ministerial assistant at Vista Buddhist Temple, grounded in her ancestral Jodo Shinshu tradition while nurturing BIPOC and emerging Sangha spaces in the Plum Village lineage. She is drawn to listen to the dharma of forests, mountains and vast horizons, while staying attuned to dreamtime. In another chapter, she worked in public service as a congressional field representative and co-founded a specialty tea company.
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ACCOMMODATIONS
There are Single, Double and Dorm rooms available. Please note, there is no available guest elevator and all rooms are accessible by stairs—except for those reserved for the mobility-impaired on the first floor. There are two communal bathrooms on each residential floor as well as a comfortable lounge with sofas and easy chairs, where tea and instant coffee are available. The lounges also are equipped with wireless, high-speed internet connection.
COVID-19